The Cohen Family Leaders in Light Fellowship is designed to help participants explore the unique challenges and opportunities each of our communities face. It brings fellows together in education and action to work toward a stronger inclusive democracy. Each fellow will leverage their extended networks to multiply influence and maximize impact, working together to create systemic change and empower positive outcomes.
The Cohen Family Leaders in Light Fellowship has two components. First, it includes a series of seven seminars over a nine-month period. Second, after completion of the seminars, the Fellowship promotes practical application of the seminar content in which participants will leverage their learnings to enhance their own work, raise awareness and inspire action in their respective communities, and catalyze change.
GOALS FOR COHORT III
1. To combat antisemitism, extremism, and hate.
2. To create a network of informed, influential, and motivated change agents.
3. To inspire action in participants' respective communities and catalyze change.
4. To build a cohort of fellows who feel more capable of working across difference.
2026-2027 Seminar Dates
Part One: Foundations of Antisemitism
Session 1
September 17, 2026
Location: Kiwavi Hub
Morning Block: Fellows meet one another and establish the relational ground the cohort will work from.
Speaker: Joey Taylor, Director of Programming, EquaSion
Afternoon Block: How fringe ideas travel into the mainstream—the on-ramps, amplifiers, and incentives that carry them.
Speaker: Andrew Marantz, Staff Writer, The New Yorker
Session 2
October 21, 2026
Location: The Remington Room
Morning Block: The radicalization pathway from both sides of the research: what draws people in, and what it felt like from the inside.
Speaker: Dr. Pasha Dashtgard, Director of Interventions, Polarization & Extremism Research & Innovation Lab (PERIL), American University
Afternoon Block: De-escalation and off-ramps: why this matters, and what the work requires.
Speaker: Pardeep Singh Kaleka, Co-Director, Not In Our Town
Session 3
November 18, 2026
Location: National Underground Railroad Freedom Center
Morning Block: How organized extremist movements build power, and what accountability looks like when they do harm.
Speaker: Amy Spitalnick, CEO, Jewish Council for Public Affairs
Afternoon Block: A local conversation about polarization, its local manifestations, and our current political climate. Some comments with extensive Q&A from our Fellows.
Speaker: Mack Mariani, Professor of Political Science, Xavier University & Jeffrey Layne Blevins, Professor of Journalism, University of Cincinnati
Part Two: The Reality of Antisemitism
Session 4
January 28, 2027
Location: Union Terminal (Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center)
Morning Block: How antisemitic tropes get laundered through conspiracy theory into ordinary public discourse.
Speaker: Mike Rothschild, Author, Jewish Space Lasers
Afternoon Block: The historical through-line—what the record shows about how this has worked before.
Speaker: Lauren Karas, Chief Learning Officer, Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center
Session 5
February 24, 2027
Location: The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives
Morning Block: The reality of antisemitism as Jewish Cincinnatians experience it now, not as an abstraction.
Speaker: Kelly Fishman, Regional Director, ADL
Afternoon Block: How that reality shows up inside Fellows' own institutions and spheres of influence.
Speaker: Chandler Waite, Director, Jewish Community Relations Council & Jeremy Spiegel, Associate Director, Jewish Community Relations Council
Part Three: Practical Application
Session 6
March 11, 2027
Location: TBD
Morning Block: Litmus tests, all-or-nothing thinking, and the shared values that survive disagreement.
Speaker: Amanda Ripley, Author, High Conflict
Afternoon Block: Action projects.
Speaker: Nelson Pierce, Senior Pastor, Beloved Community Church
Session 7
April 1, 2027
Location: TBD
Morning Block: How do you uphold the social fabric and the dignity and worth of all people?
Speaker: TBD
Afternoon Block: Fellows define concrete personal commitments and goals for weaving back what fragmentation pulled apart.
Speaker: Nelson Pierce, Senior Pastor, Beloved Community Church
